No Food Limits

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Books by K J Foxhall

Sea Shepherd UK

HELP PROTECT MARINE LIFE NOW!

I have been a supporter of SEA SHEPHERD UK for some time now - I swam 10K for them in March 2014, please help save our oceans and our future. This is not an over-exaggeration, please donate now if you can.

The work situation has changed recently in our household and so I thought it would be fun to take monster on a family outing last weekend. It is very difficult to choose a venue which contains animals when you are an animal rights campaigner. Often I have said ‘Empty the cages’ or ‘empty the tanks’ so the criteria is very tight. The establishment I take Monster to needs to be heavily involved in conservation, and you can often tell the mood of the animals by the vibe of the place. After all I do not want Monster to miss out on seeing the beauty of animals and wildlife, but at the same time if I could take Monster to an animal’s natural habitat I would.

I chose Wingham Wildlife Park which is near Canterbury. It is not too big, they are clearly very caring of the animals, the park is not overly big so the keepers can spend extra time with the animals, and the enclosures are reasonably spacious. There are also signs up everywhere about what not to do i.e. their lions were rescued from a French circus and so there was more signage asking the public not to make loud or sudden noises around them.

There were of course a few spectacles, one was the dinosaur area which was very informative, and I am really happy to say details the sixth extinction which I am sure not enough people are aware of. The animatronics were great, and it was times like that you realise just how fun being a parent can be. While one would think that the dinosaurs (which were full size so to speak), along with the noises would frighten a 13 month old, no, not my Monster.

Another feature which I have mixed feelings about is the open lemur enclosure where people can walk through. Humans need to keep to the path which was bordered by wooden posts, but there is nothing stopping the lemurs and small wallabies (I think they were wallabies anyway) from coming up to you and interacting if they wished. Of course the enclosure was guarded by a few keepers at all times.

My mother suggested that she stay outside with the push chair and I go in with Monster.
Knowing that we would be interacting with wild animals, I kept a hold of Monster and made sure they were standing upright and tall if they weren’t in my arms and here is what happened:

As you can see by the date this was the morning after the London attacks.

With regards to politics, a subject I really don’t like talking about, election day has come and gone and I was inclined to post something along the lines of ‘no matter what happens over the next few days, let’s play nice kiddies,’ but thought better of it. Instead, like many others have posted, I decided to stay away from Facebook and Twitter, and most of all the newspapers. Personally, the way I voted was the best of two evils, I didn’t want to vote for either Conservative or Labour, but looking at the numbers, and the uncertainty the UK is currently facing, it was going to be one of those two parties that were going to win.

Overall, due to the attacks and the elections of recent years, I have seen people who I considered to be friends act in unpredictable manners. This time around, it was completely the opposite to the reaction of Brexit. Whereas some who chose to Remain resorted to name calling, this time around there was a lot of pre-election banter but then when the results were announced, there was a lot of pessimism and mood deflation. I am not sure what the future will hold for us, but given the attacks against us let’s please play nice kiddies!